Recent Activity

Leaders who have been lucky are never punished for having taken too much risk. Instead, they are believed to have had the flair and foresight to anticipate success, and the sensible people who doubted them are seen in hindsight as mediocre, timid, and weak. A few lucky gambles can crown a reckless leader with a halo of prescience and boldness.

Note:On leaders who area both reckless and lucky - from Thinking, Fast and Slow.

When executives ignore their people’s ideas, the issue can be a lack of emotional intelligence. In an effort to prove they are right, these executives focus on things they want done instead of how their people can best accomplish them. Unfortunately, they often are not conscious of how their actions are seen by others, which leaves them unable to build the relationships required for success.

Leaders stimulate creativity and growth by asking great questions, listening to the answers, and asking more questions. It is not their knowledge that counts; what matters is how fast everyone learns and how effectively the learning is shared and applied. Today’s leaders must be concerned about much more than producing top-line and bottom-line results. They are expected to be conscious of the social impacts of their operations and to develop people for future positions.

The New York Times reported, “What employees valued most were even-keeled bosses who made time for one-on-one meetings, who helped people puzzle through problems by asking questions, not dictating answers, and who took an interest in employees’ lives and careers.”

Note:Be even keeled, make time for employees, help people solve problems, and care about people.

some leaders hear about Servant Leadership and decide they wantto implement it right now, then later get "buy-in" from employees, as if integrating Servant Leadership was like implementing a new accounting procedure. They bypass the deep conversations and reflections required for due diligence, and sometimes violate the core principles of Servant Leadership in the way they promote it. This leads to the second mistake: incongruence.

If we try to think first with our head, ignoring emotions and gut feelings, we tend to make poorer decisions, because we block useful information from intelligent functions in the heart and intestines. As it turns out, the old cliches about "speaking from the heart" and "a gut feeling" have a basis in physiology

Note:Small excerpt from "The Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership" on thinking with our gut and heart.

Author James Autry once heard the CEO of the Meredith Corporation make a most amazing claim: when it comes to the work of self-renewal, the most important thing is love. Autry described a company manager who modeled love in his marketing department-love for his employees, for the products they created, and for their customers. The outcome was that revenue climbed from $160 million to $500. Autry believed it was due to a transformation in the way the manager led with love."The word "love" still sounds strange in the context of business. It normally floats around church settings. But here the emphasis...

acting upon the impulse to serve does not mean one is a "service provider," a martyr or a slave, but one who consciously nurtures the mature growth of self, other people, institutions, and communities-the objective of which is to stimulate thought and action for building a better, more caring society.

Note:A servant is not a martyr, but a nurturer of growth for self, others, and communities.